I’ve been trying to upload an interview with an American Melanie Tong that I and Astrid made. It took some time first to arrange a meeting with her, then to record the interview and edit the mp3 file, and finally to cut it in smaller chunks in order to make it work in the Internet. However, we haven’t had much success in uploading it so far and I honestly don’t know how it’ll going to end up. Anyway, I suddenly recalled that Melanie was talking about children in Austria sometimes staring at her because of her Asian = different appearance. Yes, it still happens although the country must have got used to Asian and African refugees that have been coming for some 30 years now (that’s my random estimate). Still, what I want to write about is an article on my fellow countrymen (I can’t help writing about Poalnd) being confused by multicultural Britain.
First of all, I have to explain that lots of Polish people moved to Great Britain or Ireland immediately after we joined the EU. That’s because they saw better work opportunities in those wealthier countries. It’s hard to give up-to-date figures on how many Poles are currently working in Great Britain, but according to a highly-respected Polish publication Polityka there were supposed to be already 1 million Poles in 2006 residing there. You can see how well represented we are (we let 1/38 of our population immigrate though ;).
But let’s get to the point. The problem is that my nation isn’t used to multiculturalism. In the best case you can come across some black students or Chinese cooks in the biggest cities like Warsaw. In fact there are, I believe, lots of Poles who haven’t seen a person with a different skin colour even once, since they spent their whole life in a small village in the north-east. That’s why I don’t blame them for experiencing a shock in multicultural Britain, but…
Polish children in British schools turn away from children of other races or workers-to-be apply already in Poland for jobs in areas where there are fewer black people. Some argue that this behaviour isn’t a matter of racism, but intolerance towards the new. Others claim that it’s a matter of time when they’ll get accustomed to new conditions. Knowing my nation I’m pretty confident that they can get on with everybody after some time (you wouldn’t find more flexible characters than ours ;).
Yet, what I personally find the most disappointing is the attitude of children. I assume that they usually don’t pay attention to race and if they do, their parents are responsible for it. The most relevant thing to do would be therefore to change adults’ philosophy of life. The article mentions that some religious societies pass this task to priests who are supposed to prepare future expats to behave properly in new surroundings (religion has a decisive influence on a big part of the society).
Leaving the problem on one side I consider immigration in this context a terrific opportunity to develop your character and become more flexible and tolerant toward other cultures and lifestyles. That’s why I hope that this “Britain experience” will have a positive impact on tolerance in my homeland when the people that are currently staying in England will come back one day and teach others the lessons they learned themselves. http://www.guardian.co.uk/immigration/story/0,,2057571,00.html
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